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What do you notice when the reaper come close?
It’s the tap of black shoes and tick of the clock.
You might wonder why would Wonho make an acquaintance with the reaper. He would say, “When you look at him, you would understand.” The reaper is not a living skeleton that will send chill down your spine every time he moves. He is not a pair of empty eye socket and rigidness dwelling on his skull. He is never anything that adults want you to believe; creature lurking between the living to search for soul to eat.
Instead, he is a living sculpture that God carved with all care, poured with all perfection, and brought to life with warmth. Slender figure in tailored black suit and ironed black pants, always stands stiff and proud; he claimed that his name is Chae Hyungwon, and he was never one to agree with how Wonho would call him reaper.
“I am no reaper,” he tried to argue once. “I am but an anomaly.”
But what can beat his da’s bed time story? Not even a claim from reaper himself. No matter what he says, he is death; the beautiful creature of darkness, luring the living to the other world. Hair woven from finest silks, lips and cheeks tinted by roses from Eden, anything fine mixed into one. God might as well just dare everyone who look at him to follow him and meet their doom all the while.
To be honest, not even Wonho can resist.
“Reap?”
The world moved slowly whenever he is around, gazing at his prey like a stalking lion. At first, Wonho thought it was love; the whole poetic slow motion and feeling other’s gaze even way before they announce their presence. It is a shame that the whole bizarre things happening to him whenever he’s around are just how the thing goes; time must be slowed down for reaper to enter the stage with grace and his unrivalled dignity.
The reaper furrowed his eyebrows, not looking pleased at all. “I told you it’s Chae Hyungwon,” he protested while stepping out from shadow.
“And I am Lee Hoseok. Fun fact, I call myself Wonho all the damn time.”
He’s dying to see the composed gentleman to let himself loose for a second, grumbling some curse to express annoyance. All he ever received from him was exasperated huff and sideway glare, probably all he will ever get from him. After all, no reaper can show exaggerated amount of passion, right? The only reaper he knew of was just like that.
“I am here to collect the watch.”
Of course, what else had he expected? The reaper coming to meet him for his very own desire would be uncalled of; it’s just something he will never do. Yet he felt a pang of disappointment in his chest while his head screams that it’s very embarrassing to even think that Hyungwon would come for him just because of how much he missed him. Did he even feel anything for Wonho? Just another client, another test subject to observe, another prey, another man, whatever he preferred. Whatever intention drove him to give the watch, it was what dragged him to meet Wonho again.
He could almost hear the question thundering in his head. How does it feel like, falling for the reaper?
“Those people have taken it by force,” he answered with no hesitation. “I guess you don’t need my sorry for not keeping it properly. I no longer have anything of your interest, Chae Hyungwon.”
Fact he spat, bitterness lingered on his tongue still. He has lost the watch, the one and only connection he had with the reaper. Losing it means that he just got the string connecting them cut, and he knew it very well. Question he had on hand is whether it matters or not if he had tried to keep the watch. He would lose it either way and Hyungwon doesn’t strike him as a guy that would appreciate his effort.
He glanced, expecting disappointed gaze and another sigh. He had replayed the image of him looking at Wonho like a creature less than an insect for a thousand times before that moment, so he was more gleeful than anything. Maybe finally, he would spot the human in the reaper. Finally he would see Chae Hyungwon and not a living doll snatching his breath away with the way his lips puckered. It’s just a possibility, but he would love to peek at the crack on Hyungwon and he might be able to feel less lonely.
But frown never made it to his face.
“I see,” he mused as he fixed his suit and turned his body. “It’s been nice knowing you, Lee Hoseok.”
It was so distant. It felt just like looking upon the surface of a pond; he thought he might be able to get a good grasp of anything drowned in it and drowning himself trying to grab it instead. He was choking, grasping for hair, and still all he cared about was searching for the shadow he had spotted inside the pond; all of the feelings exploding inside him and the reaper didn’t even flinch in surprise when Wonho just told him that he lost the watch. He had always been someone whose emotion easy to be triggered, but this was not exactly what he had in mind.
It’s Shin Wonho, he wanted to correct, but he gulped it down. Instead, with all the spite he could muster up, he hissed, “Act surprised for once, Reap. Did you know that I lost the watch? You did not seem so taken aback.”
He said that for no particular reason. If there was one, he only wanted to vent his frustration. That’s why, when Hyungwon looked back in a snap with long-awaited frown in his face, the surprise flooding in killed his frustration.
For a moment, he appeared scared; his unfazed mien was no more as mixed emotion clouded his gaze. His puckered lips were pressed together, as if holding something from being spilled out. The hardened gaze he had was not something Wonho had seen on the reaper. It was not something that a reaper would do. He was very human at that moment.
Alas, just like a fine reaper, all of those got swiped away by a distant smile. It looked challenging, as if whatever he feared of was nothing but a speck of dust after all.
“There you have it, an act of me being surprised. Are you satisfied?” He murmured as he disappeared. And once again, Wonho knew that time flowed alongside his absence. This time, he could feel a bigger absence as he knew that he might not see Hyungwon once again.
But he knew the reaper is also a liar, a jester that fooled everyone with a wicked smile. Wonho is no idiot, that’s the miscalculation on reaper’s part. He knew that the reaper found out about the watch, and that he had no reason to visit him. He remembered the reaper once talking nonsense about the importance of time, and yet he came with vague reason to Wonho. It costs him less to ignore Wonho than to visit him just to squint on the mistake he had known for some times. Where did the efficiency he talked about go?
It was fool’s hope, he knew it well, but he wondered if the Chae Hyungwon visited him for the sake of meeting him only. A very childish desire, one that the reaper would never admit with or without his sanity intact.
Maybe he will come back.
He got reminded of the way his lips curved into mocking smile. He remembered everything about the reaper that bid him farewell, and he told himself that he won’t go anywhere by thinking that the reaper might value him more than just another human. Deny it, he reminded himself, the reaper will not make you happy. He is the reaper, he will lure you to your doom and laugh over your agony.
Can he blame himself for getting fooled by the reaper? For longing for his slender fingers to caress his cheeks and for his face to be painted with warm expression instead of rigidness?
Maybe he will comeback.
The question came back to him, creeping inside him without notice whatsoever. How does it feel like, falling for the reaper?
Like following the Pied Piper of Hamelin. He just can never get enough of his voice, even though Chae Hyungwon had never done anything but being vague.
Maybe he will come back. Maybe I have seen through the reaper, after all. Maybe he is, indeed, Chae Hyungwon; he is a human and he might just feel something like I do.